page_title: History of the Cross Border Xpress
section_title: 2000–2001: Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (GAP) Tijuana Master Plan/Ejido Tampico-Sinaloa Cartel/Management change
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Cross Border Xpress / 2000–2001: Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (GAP) Tijuana Master Plan/Ejido Tampico-Sinaloa Cartel/Management change
caption_attribution_description: English: The phased master plan for the Tijuana airport proposed by AENA with no cross-border terminal in 2000
context_page_description: The 2015 opening of the Cross Border Xpress terminal and bridge to the Tijuana Airport also referred to as the Tijuana Cross-border Terminal and the Puerta de las Californias, was preceded by a quarter century of negotiations that were impacted by political, economic and security issues.
  Following Mexico's Debt Crisis and foreign loan renegotiations in the 1980s, in 1989, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari began to implement a massive privatization program to facilitate both the general and regional development of Mexico. Key to that program was the modernization of all transportation networks. Lacking funds and acknowledging the symbiotic relationship between commerce and transportation, "co-investments" were initiated to attract both domestic and foreign capital.
context_section_description: In July 2000, GAP published a 210-page Master Plan for the Tijuana airport (Plan Maestro del Aeropuerto de Tijuana) prepared by AENA (Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea) and highlighted by image 12. Within the Master Plan a "reserve zone" was designated east of the Matrix aircraft maintenance center for the future development of a cargo terminal. The area designated as "Ejido Tampico" and consisting of 79 hectares (200 acres) showed no development plans as it was still occupied by ejidatarios (communal farmers), while the cross-border passenger terminal was not mentioned within Section 6, Proposed Development or Section 7, Maximum Possible Development, or in any of the supporting maps and plans included in the Master Plan of the Tijuana airport.
  As part of the GAP concession given to Aeropuertos Mexicanos del Pacifico (AMP), the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) was to settle the ongoing land dispute with the former Ejido Tampico which occupied 79 hectares (200 acres) shown by image 13, of the Tijuana airport's 448 hectares (1,100 acres). Negotiations between the SCT and the former Ejido Tampico in 1999 had failed, and during his presidential campaign Vicente Fox promised he would resolve the issue. In 1970, the Mexican government had expropriated the 320 hectare (790 acres) Ejido Tampico to expand the Tijuana airport and build a new runway and passenger terminal. In 1970, the Mexican government established a value on the expropriated land from the Ejido Tampico at $1.4 million pesos ($112,000 U.S. dollars in 1970). When the Mexican government failed to indemnify the ejidatarios (the communal farmers) for their lost farmland, they reoccupied a 79 hectare (200 acre) portion of the expropriated 320 hectare (790 acre) Ejido. As shown by image 13, from 1970 to 2000, the occupied land remained relatively undeveloped. The Ejido program became a major component of Mexico's post revolution constitution of 1917 through Article 27, which allowed the Mexican government to expropriate property held by large landowners and redistributed it among landless peasants. Though technically the Ejido land belonged to the Mexican government, once distributed, ejidatarios obtained the right to cultivate and possess the land into perpetuity as long as the land did not remain barren (not farmed) for more than two years. In 1992, Mexico's President Carlos Salinas de Gortari modified Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution to allow ejidatarios to obtain property rights which allowed them to develop and sell their designated Ejidos. In 1999, the Mexican government reappraised the former Ejido Tampico and established a value on the expropriated 320 hectares (790 acres) at $1.2 million pesos ($125,560 U.S. dollars) while the ejidatarios of the former Ejido Tampico taking into account the increase in property values from 1970 to 1999 and the privatization of the Tijuana airport established a commercial value on their lost land at $2.8 billion pesos ($294 million U.S. dollars). No resolution was reached and upon taking office, Mexican President Vicente Fox was also unable to resolve the land dispute. In 2000, the ejidatarios occupying the land had contacted Casey Development/Nieders and indicated a settlement price of $26 million U.S. dollars, which the SCT failed to consider. As shown by image 13, the ejidatarios then proceeded to commercially develop the 79 hectare (200 acre) area designated as the Ejido Tampicio at the Tijuana airport by leasing buildings and parcels to trucking companies which in 2006 were tied to a 2400-foot (732 meter) drug "super tunnel" close to the Tijuana airport's runway and crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into a warehouse on Otay Mesa in San Diego. Similar to the "Taj Mahal" of drug tunnels discovered on Otay Mesa in 1993, the drug "super tunnel" was traced back to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán, who on January 19, 2001 escaped from the Mexican maximum security prison known as Federal Social Readaptation Center Number 2 West (Centro Federal de Readaptación Social Número
caption: Image 12: GAP phased master plan for the Tijuana airport without a cross-border terminal, 2000
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